ARCHIVE - Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject blogs

ARCHIVE - Some Images / Research V & VI

2008-01-17T13:34:39-08:00

I have been spending some time with the truly extraordinary textile artist Anni Albers. I have two new images banks of Anni Albers' work from the catalog of a 1999 Guggenheim exhibition and a 1985 Smithsonian exhibit. These are all scans, mostly color, directly from the books so they don't have my usual scribbled commentary.

Here are the ideas I was thinking about...

1. Light -- the way light reflects off of things that are thought of as flat like fabric or paper

2. Texture -- two dimensional representations of textured surfaces (like knotted-looking fabric or woven art), this is basically about light too

3. Metallics -- again an interest in light reflection, also hidden or subtle use of metallics (like metallic thread)

4. Tests/experiments (the art of art research) -- much of Anni Albers' work was about performing studies to allow herself to experiment and gather ideas, such as laying out bits of twisted paper in patterns to explore the possibilities of woven patterns

5. Color -- most of my tearsheet work/research has been with b&w xeroxes so I'm now starting to think about color, particularly the use of bold(er) colors that don't overwhelm

ARCHIVE - Some Images / Research III & IV

2008-01-06T23:07:48-08:00

I'm adding to the mess (of ideas and images and images that represent ideas)! Soon there will be a huge tearsheet throwdown involving
a. all of my tearsheets
b. tape
c. markers
d. a wall to be covered with all of the tearsheets
e. a boombox and a lot of pacing

but in the meantime...
1. Some images from the Graphis DesignAnnual2005.
2. Some images from the book Specials by Booth-Clibborn (publisher of art/graphic design titles).

There's one or two image banks still in the works
and
who keeps listening to Piece of Me?

ARCHIVE - Another example of people gendering EVERYTHING!

2007-12-15T11:47:16-08:00

This was one of the many "cute" email forwards that are passed around again and again, designed to give a quick laugh. But, unfortunatly, no one ever really seems to think critically about what it is before they pass it on (or about whom they are passing it on TO.)

on to the sterotypical gendering of objects...

Male or Female?

You might not have known this, but a lot of non-living objects are actually either male or female. Here are some examples:

FREEZER BAGS: They are male, because they hold everything in, but you can see right through them.

PHOTOCOPIERS: These are female, because once turned off; it takes a while to warm them up again.
They are an effective reproductive device if the right buttons are pushed, but can also wreak havoc if you push the wrong Buttons.

TIRES: Tires are male, because they go bald easily and are often over inflated

HOT AIR BALLOONS: Also a male object, because to get them to go anywhere, you have to light a fire under their butt.

SPONGES: These are female, because they are soft, squeezable and retain water.

WEB PAGES:
Female, because they're constantly being looked at and frequently getting hit on.

TRAINS: Definitely male, because they always use the same old lines for picking up people.
< BR>EGG TIMERS: Egg timers are female because, over time, all the weight shifts to the bottom.

HAMMERS: Male, because in the last 5000 years, they've hardly changed at all, and are occasionally handy to have around.

THE REMOTE CONTROL: Female. Ha! You probably thought it would be male, but consider this: It easily gives a man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't always know which buttons to push, he just keeps trying.

ARCHIVE - Post on Metropolis

2007-12-11T16:01:39-08:00

It was an interesting movie and I can now see how it has affected many movies that came after it. Dr. Strangelove is one of the movies that seems to draw a straight line back to Metropolis. The doctor in Metropolis has a hand in a black glove that he lost to the creation of the robot. In Dr. Strangelove, Dr. Strangelove has a black-gloved hand that he has no control over and randomly snaps into the Hitler solute. Whether this was done out of a sign of respect or if it was done to lampoon Metropolis I’m not sure, but it was defiantly a reference to the older film. There are also other links that can be drawn to countless other Sci-fi movies that use (better quality) but essentially the same effects as they used in the libratory. When Rotwang was coping Maria the light that covered her body and transferring energy to the robot has been used for years in similar situations.

To the film itself, first striking thing about how bodies interact is that almost all the bodies are part of the machines, there is no distinction made between the mechanical apparatuses and the bodies that work with them. This is of course emphasized when one of the machines explodes and the workers sacrifice themselves to it. The work for the most part is repetitive, the workers all working together in the same rhythm. The positions that the workers bodies are is communicates that they are working hard and are needing to use their whole body to make the machine work. The upper management types and there lakes on the other had work in large offices and they looked over and monitored the work that was happening below.

Another show that still shoots back to Metropolis is the new series of Dr. Who, a BBC sci-fi show. In that show there is a race called Cybermen, who are trying to upgrade the human race. There is of shoot of that show called Trochwood that has a female Cyberman who looks almost just like the robot in Metropolis. It is just interesting to see that the same visual representaion is still being used.

ARCHIVE - e-Corpus, Week 8, #2

2007-12-11T15:20:22-08:00

So in Beauty Parlor one of the groups went over Facebook and how it tries to digitally represent a body. One of the options that it has is the relationship status option. This function has now defiantly one of the steps on courtship. A relation ship is not final until it is declared on Facebook. And it is officially over when it is taken off. Its just interesting how important it has become, or at least amongst the younger generations. It has even interred into the culture, every so often the term “facebook final”. Meaning that its something is final once it is posted. Even beyond just that one function it is a way to catch up on people with out even talking to them. It is just interesting how much it is affecting how we interact.

ARCHIVE - e-Corpus, Week 6, #2

2007-12-11T14:30:35-08:00

In our conversation this week on Brecht and his method of making the audience uneasy as to get them to think harder on the messages of his pay. He does this through having his characters brake out in song and other tricks that disconcert the viewer. One of the things that disconcert me when reading the play was the language. Though the play is set in china, the dialogue is notably British. Every so often there will be a word or phrase that links in my mind to the British pattern of speech from the early 20th century. The thing is, I’m not sure is this was intentional or, if Brecht just couldn’t be bothered to do the dialogue to mach the setting. Or did he write that way so the pattern of speech in the play would be easier for his British audience to understand. If so, that would be a very anti Brechtion thing to do. I jess I just always find it hard to tell when subtle things like that are intentional, especially when it is an older work. Because I don’t know how the audience would have responded to it. And how the audience responds defines how successful a technique is. So I’m still undecided to whether or not the odd chose in dialect in the dialogue was intentional or not.

ARCHIVE - e-Corpus, Week 4, #2

2007-12-11T13:47:32-08:00

It felt so odd this week when we did the workshop where we took apart other peoples work and rewrote it as it pleased us. All through most of my schooling I was taught and almost reverence for the texts of others, and having that in the back of my mind it was hard for me to rip apart the text I had been given. What I had been given was Cock and Bull which is an amusing story about a transvestite. By ripping it apart and reassembling it I found that not only had I crated something amusing but I also had a grater understanding of the text. It made me to pay attention to every word and the order they where laid down. I became vary connected to the fore pages of the story I had been given and did understand it better. Though it is time consuming I think it will be a strategy I will use more to become closer to what I’m reading.

ARCHIVE - e-Corpus, Week 5, #2

2007-12-11T12:53:44-08:00

So this week we have been talking about some of the different styles of acting. One of the styles is method acting, which is where the actors put themselves in the poison of the character they are playing and tries to play them as accurately as possible. This week I was listening to the NPR show This American life, which is a show where they have different, stories often around one theme. And this week they had just one story that was about a group of maximum-security prisoners who where pouting on a production of Act 5 of Shakespeare’s famous Hamlet. This is an interesting look into character acting because the characters in Hamlet are contemplating committing a murder, and several of the people performing the play actually had murdered someone. What a unique insight they must have had into exactly what their characters must be going though.

The name of the episode is just Act V, # 218 and you can hear it at thislife.org and its just about an hour long.

ARCHIVE - e-Corpus, Week 8, #1

2007-12-10T10:23:42-08:00

The thing about this week of the class is, it seems to have glorified the celebrity body instead of looking at them with the contempt they disserve. I’m just frustrated that in class the tone was more reverential than skeptical. The discussion seamed to go more in the direction of gossip. I just don’t understand why we give celebrities so much credit. I was proud that I didn’t know who most of the celebrities where who we talked about, and if I did know their names I knew none of the other details of their life. I was also proud that I had never seen a Michael Jackson video before. I think that speaks well of my character. My opinion of them is that they are just ridicules people who aren’t that good at what they do, but just have good publicists. We shouldn’t be giving them more attention and power by talking about them, we should just ignore them and hope they will go away.

ARCHIVE - e-Corpus, week 4, #1

2007-12-10T07:20:48-08:00

This week we watched the movie Southern Comfort, which Ithought was a good film even though the production value was low budget. What struck me particularly was howRobert and company where able to built such close community even it a part ofthe country that is not know for its tolerance. I assumed that people in the trans community would chouse tomove to a city where the trans community is stronger. But they didn’t move, they made there own community wherethey lived. It’s amazing that theynot only lived in a rural aria but that they blended in so well. I find it incredibly funny that Robertwas even asked to join the KKK. Despite how well they where doing in their own tight group, as soon asRobert needed medical care he was turned down because he was trans. When Robert is diagnosed with ovariancancer he continually turned down because the doctors don’t want him sitting intheir waiting rooms, they are afraid that the other clients will feeluncomfortable. Now this is what Idon’t get, if the doctors where just saying that they didn’t want it to lookodd to their other clients, why didn’t Robert just go with someone who dididentify as female? Then Robertwould have a reason for being there; he would be there to support the femaleidentified person. Then once theygot behind closed doors they could do the procedure. I don’t know but it seems like that would have worked as away the doctor could have saved face and Robert could have receivedtreatment. I don’t know I justcan’t believe that they couldn’t find treatment for him. Though this is probably not the case,it felt like they could have done more. Even if they had just made the appointment and tolled the doctor oncethey got there that Robert was trans, and had brought the camera. After being tolled that they where onfilm, and meeting Robert face to face, I bet not nearly as many would haveturned down treatment. I justcan’t believe that a doctor would not treat some one, regardless of what they looked like.

ARCHIVE - Girl with Eight Limbs

2007-12-08T15:41:21-08:00

Thinking about what sort of bodies are abject...

"Lakshmi before surgery to remove her 'parasitic twin' that stopped developing in the womb. A two-year-old Indian girl, born with four arms and four legs, is making a good recovery after a 27-hour operation last week. Doctors say her condition is stable and will decide later this week whether to move her from the intensive care unit."

It's also interesting that this girl had eight limbs, like some Hindu gods. While this may seem like a disability that would cause this girl a lot of hardship in her life, I wonder if she is treated with more dignity because her culture is more familiar with images of multiple limbs. I wonder if anyone thought she could be an incarnation of Lakshmi- while this little girl might really benefit from becoming "normal," and who am I to say she shouldn't get that chance, it's worth thinking about how she might have been thought of in a time before advanced surgery could transform her. It's kind of eugenic- and reminds me of sex-assignment surgery of intersex infants- isn't it worth asking -"what's wrong with being this way?"

Looking up the name Lakshmi on wikipedia, I found that it the name of a Hindu goddess:

Physically, goddess Lakshmi is described as a fair lady, with four arms, seated on a lotus, dressed in fine garments and precious jewels. Her expression is always calm and loving. The most striking feature of the iconography of Lakshmi is her persistent association with the lotus. The meaning of the lotus in relation to Shri-Lakshmi refers to purity and spiritual power. Rooted in the mud but blossoming above the water, completely uncontaminated by the mud, the lotus represents spiritual perfection and authority.

Lakshmi is the Hindu goddess of wealth, fortune, love and beauty, the lotus flower and fertility. Representations of Lakshmi (or Shri) are found in Jain and Buddhist monuments, in addition to Hindu temples. Analogous to the Greek Aphrodite and Roman Venus - who also originated from the oceans - she is generally thought of as the personification of material fortune, beauty and prosperity.

ARCHIVE - project proposal

2007-12-08T13:08:13-08:00

Maria
Fine Draft
Winter Project Proposal

This winter I would like to do two smaller projects. The first is to write a screenplay for a short film that will be 20 to 25 minutes long, and the second is to help Blythe and Mellissa as an assistant on their production of Genet’s The Maids. I have wanted to write and produce a film for a long time but don’t have much experience. Although film and theatre are different mediums and certainly have their own particular characteristics and challenges I think helping out with rehearsals, set building, and other technical aspects of the play will be helpful when it comes to directing and producing my own film.
The movie I want to write is going to be a comedy about free will. It involves two main characters, Cynthia and Evan, identified as a boy and a girl who are stuck in their lives and daily routines until a mystical experience happens and suddenly transforms the both of them into “extreme” (completely uninhibited and impulsive) versions of themselves.
The two biggest influences behind the idea for this film are the essay Theory of the Derive by Guy Debord in the Situationist International and the 1928 Film The Crowd by King Vidor. The spirit of the Derive and living life according to your inspiration in the moment is something which is embraced and exaggerated in the film in a hopefully funny and also hopefully interesting way, and it will explore what might happen if we were to fully live out the idea and how doing so might enrich or fulfill our lives and also how it could damage them. The movie The Crowd is an influence because of it’s themes of mechanization (and determinism) and especially because of how this was portrayed through the cinematography of the film. I would like to incorporate some aspects of the style of the film when I get to the process of storyboarding. Also I want to reference two particular ideas from the movie. The first is a scene where the main character first gets to the city and goes into an elevator and faces the wrong direction and gets corrected, and the second is a scene with a street performer and the hopelessness that this figure conveys and also it’s implications in terms of social class.
As far as my involvement with the play The Maids I am going to be attending rehearsals twice a week and acting as an assistant. My role will be flexible according to what is needed so it’s hard to sketch out here exactly what I will be doing from week to week but Blythe and Mellissa have said that they will want someone to discuss concepts in the script with, help with line notes, and to help out with set building and costuming and make-up. I’m almost viewing my time with them as sort of an internship to gain experience working with these things and observing, so I think it will be really useful and fun.
Some central themes in The Maids are performance, power, and gender (we are deciding to cast male identified actors to play the roles of two of the female characters in the play). I think the themes of power and performance especially relate to what I want to say about free-will in my screenplay as well. An essential element in becoming free in making your own decisions is discovering that you have options or other modes of being. I think the emphasis Genet places on performance and the trouble in pinning down the real self underneath the levels of artifice can be liberating in that it doesn’t leave you bound by any fixed mode of being. I think that the emphasis on power is also relevant because I do believe that power is relational, as Foucault stated in History of Sexuality. It’s interesting to consider how playing different moves and creating different experiences affects the game. In the majority of The Maids Claire and Solange are role playing the murder of their employer (Madame) while she is away. They are stepping outside of their identities and their reality in order to imagine or practice for something different. The actions of the characters in my screenplay are for the most part going to be somewhat less drastic than murder (although I haven’t completely ruled it out), but you will see a lot of things over the course of the movie and they are all acted out in real life. It will be interesting to reflect upon these two subjects together.
I think the greatest challenge for my writing will be to write a script which is actually funny and thought provoking at the same time. I definitely want to make some sudden jumps from funny to serious, and I’m scared if I write it poorly the philosophical ideas will either come off as boring and wordy, or as cheesy. I was really impressed how in “The Good Person of Schezwan” Brecht’s play addressed such serious subject matter but also managed to be entertaining. Although they are intended to be acted realistically I think a lot of the actions that the two main characters do will be so strange that they will be alienating enough to make the viewer be critical about what is going on in the situation.
The play is in dialogue with Orgel. Genet himself was attracted to men and in the introduction Sartre says that this play was not really written about woman but men. It is noted that the Maids do interact in a sexual way and although the characters do have a same sex relationship it is speculated that the fact that they are women is a mask for Genet to write about a sexual relationship between two males. This could be related to some of Orgel’s ideas about the fears and also the allowances of homosexual desire in Renaissance theatre. It is arguably different in a lot of ways, not the least of which is that men playing women in today’s theatre is not the norm. But I do think that these as well as other ideas about the sexually charged theatre and also about clothing somehow making the man or woman, is absolutely related to what we will be doing.
In Sartre’s introduction to the play he talks about how Genet said if he were to stage the play he would use male actors for all three parts and hang placards to the right and left of the stage stating that the actors were in fact men. I feel like this gesture might have made Brecht smile, since it was very much in line with his ideas about the epic theatre and the need for distance or alienation between the audience and the theatrical work. I feel like Brecht and Genet are interesting to compare since both were concerned with the artificiality of performance. However, in the play after the artifice of the actors is revealed and the theatre itself is acknowledged to be fake, the level of artificiality continues to spiral as the actors role play within the work and switch places as Claire pretends to be Madame and Solange pretends to be Claire. Then you see the artificiality of the characters themselves within their jobs as servants and their struggle the distance themselves from it, which is achieved by dreaming up different imaginary roles for themselves to play apart from the reality of their work. At this point is hard to place any sort of neat divide between performance and the real, because the real is continuously deconstructed. In some ways it’s as though the play was written as epic theatre with the subject offered up for criticism being reality itself. The circular nature of it which Sartre alludes to in his introduction is really the brilliant thing about it though, as one real is deconstructed as false and always seen through against another “real” which has already been previously been seen through as false.
My screenplay is in dialogue with Brecht also. I think mainly for the reason mentioned above about entertainment and content. Also I think that its method will be similar to how Brecht describes epic theatre and also its audience and its aims.
My Screenplay is also in dialogue with Guy Deboard and Situationists since they are the primary inspiration for the work.
My imagined audience for my movie is the general public. Basically anyone I can get to agree to sit down and watch it is an acceptable audience for me when I finish it. However, I agree with the Brechtian notion that we have to give the general public the credit of being smart. I don’t want to make my screenplay or the resulting film watered down or easy, but at the same time I want it to be entertaining.
The imagined audience for “The Maids” is probably going to be primarily Evergreen students since we are trying to book a space for it in the Communications Building. However there is a chance that we will try to find another venue downtown (possibly the Midnight Sun) and we have even talked a little bit about how the possibility of trying to show it in Seattle or Portland (Blythe’s mom is involved in theater in Portland) but we also realize that performing this far away might be hard to organize and may not be practical.
I think both of these pieces intend to raise lots of questions for the audience. I think one of the goals is the Brechtian idea to urge people to reexamine everyday occurrences. The working life and treatment of the maids in the play was very typical of their time. My screenplay is going to be more current but it is also going to deal with everyday issues that are sometimes overlooked.

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary texts

Genet, Jean (author) and Jean-Paul Sartre (preface). 7-32, 33-100, 101-164. The Maids and Deathwatch: Two Plays. New York: Grove Press, 1982. This book contains the play itself and also a second play, Deathwatch which Sartre argues in the introduction is the same story as The Maids. Of course we will constantly be referring to The Maids itself, and I think it will also be interesting to read Deathwatch to see how it is similar.

The Crowd. Dir. King Vidor. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). 1928.

This film tells the story of a foolishly idealistic young man trying to become successful and in New York City. Despite his best efforts to “make something of himself” and rise above the crowd he becomes swallowed up in the work machine, at first living a painstakingly ordinary life and eventually ending up in poverty. The simplicity of the plot in this movie leaves something to be desired for me, but I love the style of the imagery. The inevitability of the dreariness of life that the movie portrays is a theme that the characters in my screenplay are rubbing against and trying their hardest to disregard.

Murderous Maids. Dir. Jean-Pierre Denis. ARP Selection. 2000.

This film is about the lives of the Papin sisters who are the subject of Genet’s play The Maids. Blythe saw this movie and recommended it to all of us to watch. She felt that this movie was more disturbing and more authentically showed the brutality of the murder than some of the other films made about Christine and Lea Papin. She also felt it spoke to the power relations inherent in the profession of being a maid in France during the time period.

Secondary texts

Foucault, Michel. Madness and civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New York: Random House, 1965.

One of the characters in my screenplay starts off as a self conscious and socially awkward office worker who is secretly obsessed with a TV therapist (modeled after Dr. Phil). After undergoing his “extreme” transformation and getting in trouble for acting out he is ordered to see a psychologist before returning to work. He is secretly thrilled to be undergoing treatment and to have the opportunity to confess and be “fixed” by the psychologist. It’s in this space that I think I’m going to write in a lot of the talk-y philosophical ideas I want to address through the work. I want to read Foucault’s critique of mental institutions and mental illness because I think it will be relevant to these interactions. I think it will also clarify for me what exactly it does to the power relation when the patient is absolutely thrilled to be there and plays within his role as patient. Also the question “what does it mean to be mad?” is relevant to what I’m writing. Hopefully in my screenplay I write I’ll show both some advantages and disadvantages of deciding to go against society’s expectations and be a little crazy.

Appignanesi, Richard. Freud for Beginners. New York: Pantheon, 1990.

I want to read this book because I read Foucault for Beginners at the beginning of the quarter and thought it was an easy, non intimidating read that helped me to get a good start on understanding some of Foucault’s concepts. I don’t want to study Freud in too much depth but I do want to learn enough to be able to kind of poke fun at the institution of psychology in the scenes where Evan is in the clinic. Psychoanalysis seems like an easy target for this. Electra complexes, anal retentive and expulsive personalities, incest, it all sounds like comedy gold to me. I want to contrast some of the absurdity of these theories with the grave seriousness in the demeanor of these old white men.

Freud was very serious.

The writing part of my project won’t require any technical proficiency. I do want to work on my writing so I’m planning on getting feedback from my peers, and discussing my work a lot. I am basically doing the play to acquire skills and my group knows I’m going into this with not much experience but they are thankful for the help. We will need to have space for the rehearsals and performances. We will also need access to materials for building sets, props and we will need costumes. My best friend is in media works and knows the costume shop and prop supplies at Evergreen by heart so she would be a good person to ask for help if we have any trouble figuring out resources at Evergreen. We also collaborate on art projects a lot together so I know she’d probably love to lend a hand here and there.
PERSONAL SYLLABUS

Week 1

Sketch out rough draft of screen play and the scenes you want to write
Go on a Derive (alone)
Initial meeting with cast (read through)
2nd meeting (rehearsal)
Re-read Sartre’s introduction to The Maids

Week 2

Watch Murderous Maids
Re-Read The Maids
Rehearsal
Rehearsal
Write
Go on a Derive (with a friend)

Week 3

Watch The Crowd
Go on a Derive
Read Deathwatch
Rehearsal
Rehearsal
Give your writing so far to a friend to read and set up a coffee date to talk about your work
Continue writing

Week 4

Coffee date about your writing
Go on a Derive
Read Begin Madness and Civilization
Rehearsal
Rehearsal
Give your writing to another friend and set up another coffee date
Continue writing

Week 5

Coffee date about your writing
Go on a derive
Rehearsal
Rehearsal
Finish Madness and Civilization
Continue Writing

Week 6

Derive
Rehearsal
Rehearsal
Read Freud for Beginners
Finish your rough draft of your story
Send it out to friends and set up coffee dates about your writing

Week 7

Selected Situationist readings
Try and go on 2 coffee dates to talk about your writing
Derive
Rehearsal
Rehearsal
Go to the Writing Center on Campus and have them edit your work

Week 8

Derive
Put your finishing touches on your writing and finish your final copy
Rehearsal
Rehearsal

Week 9

Dry tech rehearsal
Wet tech rehearsal
Final Dress rehearsal
Performances

Week 10

Performances

ARCHIVE - Some Images / Research II

2007-12-07T19:42:37-08:00

More images and things that I've been looking at. This time it's a little bit of a mishmash from the Communication Arts Photography Annual, some stragglers from the Design Annual, and a few other items.

ARCHIVE - Winter project proposal

2007-12-07T17:55:25-08:00

Winter project proposal! Environmental Portraits on Identity.

ARCHIVE - Exam questions

2007-12-07T17:53:14-08:00

Timothy
Concept Rhyming Paper #3
Essay Questions

THE SELF

Question:
Through the destruction of the heart machine in the film Metropoilis, both upper and lower levels were deemed useless due to the loss of power. How could equality between the two classes of Metropolis be gained through the destruction of the heart machine?

My Answer:

Through the loss of the machine, the city was deemed useless. The lower levels were flooded deeming them useless as well. Yet at the end of the film, the head, heart, and body were united creating a triad. Through this triad, it would appear that equality was gained To create equality would be for both the lower and upper class to act like the machine they destroyed. For the machine they would have to create a democracy, a new form of government and organization. A new machine to power the city would have to be built, yet through this process might occur difficulties in equality, so it would have to be a cooperative movement, like a well oiled machine.

THE SUBJECT

Question:
How is identity evolving through gender and sexuality? How would Butler define identity? What is gender’s role in identity?

My Answer:
It seems that Butler isn’t interested in defining identity. It’s a constantly moving perception both within others and us. She’s interested in how gender plays into identity. Like identity, gender sometimes isn’t a set thing. Like identity, gender is moving. Shaping identity in numerous ways.

THE CITIZEN

Question:
How is gender an ideology? Is it? How Teresa de Lauretis talk about ideology in context with gender?

My Answer:
- Ideology: “visionary theorizing, a system of concepts about human life or culture,” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary).
- “Replacing ideology with gender in Athusser’s quote: “All ideaology has the function (which defines it) of ‘constituting’ concrete individuals as subjects,’ (Althusser, 171),” (de Lauretis, 7). Gives us a a parallel between gender and ideology.
Gender is oppressed by ideology.
They can be examples of one another, yet oppressed by eachother.